


The Perfect Date

by supposed2bfunny



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, brief mentions of sex, but also lots of self-doubt, dennis kind of being a prick but mac's used to it, general stupidity, this is dennis we're talking about
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 19:32:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17566622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supposed2bfunny/pseuds/supposed2bfunny
Summary: Alone at Paddy's one night, Dennis prompts Mac to describe the perfect date for the two of them to go on. Their differing fantasies tell a lot about what they expect from one another, and Dennis might not be fully able to process it all just yet.





	The Perfect Date

**Author's Note:**

> First MacDen drabble; there's plenty more to come! Overarching headcanons that will probably show up again and again including Dennis having serious self-doubt about pretty much everything, Mac having a much lower sex-drive than Dennis, and Mac being a general idiot overall. 
> 
> This isn't set in any particular season, though it's fairly modern since there's a brief mention of selfies. 
> 
> Feel free to say hi on Tumblr, where I'm way more active (same username) and always craving Validation.

“Okay, I’ve got one,” Dennis said, dropping his pen onto his notepad. 

After putting it off for several weeks, he and Mac had finally forced themselves to stay late at Paddy’s to do inventory. It had proved itself to be as boring as they had dreaded, so they had been drinking for the past few hours while they completed the task at hand. Well, Mac had done a lion’s share of the drinking since Dennis would be driving home and he’d seen a few more cops on the road than usual, but they were both feeling loose and good as the evening wore on.

Since concentration and fine print weren’t Mac’s strong suites, Dennis had found himself doing a majority of the note-taking and book keeping, while his boyfriend brought out several cases of liquor and set to work re-stocking the shelves behind the bar, happier doing busy work than counting and jotting down notes.

“What is it, dude?” he asked, setting a large case of Absolut down on the nearest table and looking over at Dennis expectantly.

It took Dennis longer than it should have to respond as he found himself staring at the fluid ripple of muscles along Mac’s arms as he handled the case of vodka. “Right,” he finally collected himself. “Here’s a game: describe the perfect date for us.”

The dark-haired man grinned. “The perfect date for us to what?”

“No, idiot, like, romantic date,” he snapped. Mac’s brows furrowed in confusion, and Dennis rubbed his temples theatrically. “Like, if you could plan the itinerary for a date night—or day—for us, like, your ideal, perfect date, what would it be like? Go.”

“Ohh,” he crossed his arms over the case and rested his cheek atop them, looking thoughtful for a moment. “A perfect day with you…hm, let’s see. Ooh, I know! Maybe it would start out with us going to a Phillies game!”

Dennis made a few minute additions to the notepad, more perfunctory indications that a manager had in fact been present for inventory than any actual contribution. If they ever got audited, he knew they were fucked. “A Phillies game? Really, Mac? That’s not romantic! Isn’t baseball one of the things most guys think about to kill their boners? Why would we do that for a date?”

The other man shrugged. “Guys think of baseball to kill boners? That’s news to me, man. And hey, you said a perfect date, and we both love the Phillies, so I think it could be a lot of fun. Some spirit for our city, some good old American sports. That’s a great day, totally well-spent and doing what we love to do. I mean, in an ideal world, afterwards we would meet up with the team, maybe play a little catch or something. I could finally introduce myself to—”

“I feel like this is really getting away from you and me,” Dennis interrupted. “You’re just describing stuff you want to do in general, not stuff you want to do in relation to me. Can you make this any more romantic?” He didn’t want to think about how Mac’s ideal day had him living out childhood fantasies with buff professional athletes instead of taking him for moonlit strolls beneath the Eiffel Tower, or rubbing suntan lotion into his back on a tropical island, or something more… _sensual_.

“Fine,” Mac agreed, holding his hands up in a sign of defeat. “The baseball game ends and we can uh…then maybe we could take a walk in the park. Y’know, by Washington Square or something.”

Dennis smiled. “That sounds kind of nice actually. We never really take walks together. Just people-watch, maybe buy some coffees or ice cream, snap a few photos by the fountain,” he pantomimed taking a selfie, giving a pouty face that made Mac laugh.

“Hell yeah, do it for the ‘gram! Two boyfriends out having a great day!”

“A little simple and cliché, maybe,” Dennis commented. “But it could be fun. Keep going.”

“It could totally be fun!” he agreed, eyes lighting up in that way that only Mac’s did, smiling with a purpose now: he knew his words were pleasing Dennis and that made him all the more excited. “I would hold your hand, maybe even kiss you right in front of the fountain, screw all the tourists. Who cares if people stare? Cuz in that moment, it’d feel like you and me had the whole place to ourselves. It’d be perfect.”

By now Dennis had abandoned his project and strode around the bar, standing at the table with Mac and trying to reign in the smile that his lover’s words were coaxing out of him. In the months that they had been openly dating, he was struggling more and more to keep his emotions in check, particularly to scale back his happiness. The more obvious it was when Mac was making him happy, the less likely Mac might be to really try and earn it in the future, he reasoned. Complacency was a dangerous human trait. Dennis had spent his entire life mastering the art of dissimulation, and it drove him nuts that someone as simple—as opaque even!—as Mac was starting to threaten that control he’d mastered. He knew that at that moment it was obvious how much the words were lighting him up. 

“That is pretty perfect,” he admitted quietly, in spite of himself. “Anything else to finish up the night?”

He wondered idly how sexy Mac’s imagination could get. What sort of debauchery, what raunchy scenarios he was capable of laying out in an imaginary story when he could set his inhibitions aside for the sake of harmless fantasy.

“Maybe we could come back to Paddy’s,” he suggested, and Dennis could practically hear the record scratch.

“It’s a perfect date scenario and you’re bringing us back to the place we work? Dude!”

“I mean, it’s fun when we have the bar all to ourselves,” Mac defended. “All the beer we can drink, plenty of privacy—”

“What privacy? Frank, Charlie, and Dee all have keys and could bust in at any moment!”

“Okay fine, no bar,” he rolled his eyes. “I mean, I like being here with you. But okay, I rescind the Paddy’s idea. Instead, we’d head back to our apartment just as it’s starting to get dark. It’s a little chilly, so we’d pull out that nice fleecy blanket you keep stored in the ottoman—”

“—I like where this is going—”

“—And we cuddle under it and have ourselves a movie night!” Mac pumped his fist to show his excitement, smile flickering down a few watts when Dennis fixed him with an incredulous stare.

“Are you kidding me?”

“What?”

“Mac, fifty percent of what you just described is stuff that we do on any normal day! We always come to the bar. We usually close.”

“Well sometimes, Charlie’s still here doing Charlie Work—”

“We _practically_ have the place to ourselves, in any case. And we do movie nights all the time too. How is that original? How is that a fantasy?”

“Because they’re fun!” Mac was beginning to raise his voice, and Dennis realized it was because his own voice had begun to go up in volume. “And since we’ve started dating we sit closer on the couch when we watch the movies and sometimes we kiss or you let me keep my hand on your thigh and it’s nice.”

Dennis shook his head. “I’m glad you’re complacent in our simple routine,” he sighed. “But the whole reason I asked is that I was trying to make you come up with a romantic scenario that’s outside of our normal schedule. You managed to fail fantastically at that. Do you have any imagination at all?”

Mac rolled his eyes and placed his hands on his hips, chest heaving with a melodramatic sigh, all of this most definitely body language that he had picked up from Dennis. “Well then, if I’m so uncreative, you tell me what an ideal date would be for you,” he challenged.

“Oh, I’ll give you romantic,” Dennis responded, jabbing a finger in his face, brow set in determination. “I’ll give you the ultimate goddamn romance. First of all, fuck Philly. If this is an ideal world, I’m taking you somewhere nice, like Paris.”

“Why would we go there?” he laughed. “We don’t even speak Persian.”

“You mean _Parisian_ , which isn’t a language; they speak French in Paris,” he grit out. 

“Oh, yeah.”

“And anyway, I’d take you there, or someplace tropical like Bali, or exciting like Tokyo.”

“Dennis, you’re putting too much effort into this,” Mac cut him off before he could come up with anything romantic to do in any of those cities he’d read about in magazines. “It’s a single date, not a whole vacation. Why don’t you pick something more local? I know this is an ideal world, but we gotta set some ground rules.”

“Ground rules? You’re setting me ground rules for a make-believe conversation? Seriously, Mac?”

“Gotta be fair, and what’s fantasy if it’s not rooted in at least some reality? Make this shit believable, Dennis. You’ve only got one day for the date. Go.”

“Fine,” he conceded, though it still felt unfair that he had to scale back his grand scenarios just because Mac’s own had been so pathetic. Still, he wanted to impress him, not fight him, so he dove back in. “I’d at least take you out of town. Maybe we could spend a night in New York City, or Boston.”

“Boston! Hell yeah! They’ve got like, tons of breweries there! That’s like our sister city, man!”

“They do have breweries,” he agreed, perking up now that Mac was finally being perceptive to his ideas. “Plus tons of museums, and historical districts like our own. I’d lead you down cobblestone streets, or take you north in the city where all the good restaurants are. I’d have a reservation for the classiest Italian place, we’d have ourselves a nice meal in candlelight, lots of wine.”

“Ooh, wine; fancy,” Mac shoved his shoulder playfully. They both new perfectly well that they preferred beer to wine any day of the week, but for the sake of this fantasy, they could be fancy for a night. It was easy to imagine the way candlelight would bring out the deep, mesmerizing color of Mac’s eyes, how handsome he would look smiling suavely as he brought a glass of expensive white wine to his mouth...“Keep going, Den, it’s getting good.”

“Or maybe we go to Manhattan,” he said, snapping himself out of his own fantasy and switching gears, because he wasn’t done wowing just yet. “I take you up into the tallest skyscrapers so we can overlook the whole city, and I kiss you there, a hundred and fifty stories up. Or we stroll through Central Park for hours without encountering another soul.”

“Dennis, dude, you’re good at this,” Mac mumbled, and Dennis realized to his utter delight that Mac was blushing slightly at all of his grand schemes.

“I haven’t even gotten to the best part yet,” he murmured, voice dropping low. At some point they had both begun to lean into one another. Dennis continued in a hushed tone even though they were alone in the bar with no noise to speak over. “After a day of sight-seeing, I take you back to our five-star hotel.”

“How’d you afford that?”

“It’s a fantasy, Mac, just pretend I borrowed it from the Bank of Dee’s sock drawer, or Frank wrote me a nice check for my birthday or something. Anyway, we have a penthouse suite to ourselves. Heart-shaped Jacuzzi, just for us. We soak in it, split a bottle of champagne.”

“Nice,” he nodded, eyes crinkling in the corners in pleasure like he could practically feel the warm water, taste the bubbly drink.

“Then, we’re clad only in towels as I guide you to the bed. The sheets are satin; _suuuper_ soft to the touch. I mean no expense has been spared here, babe. There’s black silk rope along the headboard, and I tie your wrists to it, pin you down just like I know you love. I’ve also brought a blindfold with me,” with those words, Dennis stepped even closer, invading Mac’s personal space and raising a hand, gently cupping it over the man’s eyes. “I blindfold you,” he practically purred, knowing his voice was dragging, sexy, confident, irresistible. He was at his best when he was like this, powerful and in control. “You have no way of knowing where I’m going to touch you next,” he leaned in and kissed the side of Mac’s neck to demonstrate. 

He could feel the man’s eyelashes fluttering against his palm, felt the soft inhale of surprise, the body heat pouring off of him. Mac’s hands reached out to touch, but he clearly didn’t know if he was allowed to or not. In this fantasy, his wrists were bound. So his hands froze halfway to Dennis, who gently pushed them back down to his sides. Dennis leaned back in then, pressed another kiss lower down on Mac’s neck, and again reveled in the sound of his sharp intake of breath. He could spend a lifetime curled into Mac, clinging to the body heat that always poured off him, the most comforting thing he knew. 

He pulled back just slightly, keeping his hand in place as he continued his story. “All you can do is lay back and take it as I kiss you, touch you, wherever I want. And once I’ve worked you up, once you’re just a shivering mess beneath me,” he leaned in on Mac’s other side, pressed his lips to his ear and growled, “I—” the word was right on the tip of his tongue: _fuck_ , but he swallowed it down, it was just a fantasy, so he let himself speak recklessly: “I make love to you till dawn.”

“Hmm,” something between a moan and a whimper left Mac’s throat, and Dennis smiled at his handiwork, removing his hand from Mac’s face and pressing his cheek to his shoulder in a brief moment of vulnerability. He didn’t want his boyfriend to see how deeply he himself was blushing just from uttering those words. A second was all it took to compose himself so he could show his face again without fear of over-sharing.

Before he could pull back, Mac’s arms wrapped around him, holding him tight 

“Pretty hot,” he admitted, his own voice sounding just a bit gruff. “But you’re one to talk about planning stuff we always do. Should’ve known you’d bring it back to sex, Dennis,” he said in a half-laugh, and Dennis pulled back now, a bit incredulous at the joke.

“Of course I did. We’re dating, aren’t we? Which means you’re my boyfriend—the man I choose to be monogamous with. That’s pretty big for me, Mac. You’re the only person I’m banging so of course I’m going to bring it up when describing a perfect date with you. Frankly, I’m a little hurt that you didn’t factor that into your story. Do I really repel you that much?”

“Dude, calm down,” Mac started.

“No, seriously, did you not like my fantasy just now? Because I thought you were into it, but if that’s not what makes you happy, you should tell me.” Meer moments ago, his voice had been a low, sensual purr. Now, it was doing that thing that he hated, rising in pitch against his will as he became worked up with self-doubt. Because Mac never offered up erotic fantasies, and maybe it was because he found Dennis overbearing but just couldn’t bring himself to say it. Was that the case? Was the thing Dennis most prided himself in off-putting to the one person whose opinion of him counted the most?

A perfect day in Boston, a trip to New York City, and Mac’s feedback was to tease him for making it sexual? That was what defined Dennis, what made him charming and gave him a unique value. What was he if he had no _value_?

Before he could panic further, Mac’s hands were on his shoulders, steadying him, grounding him. He stepped into Dennis’s space, and the taller man wondered if he was going to be kissed. Instead, Mac pressed their foreheads together with a soft “ _shhh_ ” as his thumbs worked over Dennis’s shoulders, massaging the muscles there.

“Sorry my date ideas sucked,” he murmured, tilting his head, giving little Eskimo kisses that were so tacky yet sweet that Dennis began to melt a bit in spite of himself. They both kept their eyes down, skittish of one another. “At least listen to where I’m coming from, dude: I like spending time with you, period. I’d love to do all the fancy stuff you just described, but honestly, I’m just as happy getting to work with you every day, drinking here, going grocery shopping, having fun and Dave and Buster’s, falling asleep on the couch together watching _Die Hard_ movies.”

“There isn’t any glamor in that,” Dennis argued half-heartedly. “People get bored with that shit, Mac. The ennui becomes oppressive.” He was pretty sure he’d read that line in a play or something, and while a bit dramatic, it felt very true. He doubted Mac understood.

“I don’t need glamor,” he insisted with a soft smile. “I’m a simple guy, Dennis. Easy to please. Sorry if that’s not what you want. But being here in the city I love with—” _with the person I love_ , Dennis willed him to say, “—with you, it’s all I need to be happy. I guess,” he made eye contact with Dennis and refused to let go, somehow compelling their eyes to stay connected even as Dennis desperately wanted to look away, to get a moment’s respite from this raw intimacy. “I guess each day I get to spend with you as my boyfriend is already an ideal fantasy come true. I’m happy every second I get to just be with you. You _are_ my happiness and glamor, Den. Do you believe me?”

There was way too much emotion for Dennis to process in that moment, so he returned to his previous position of dropping his head onto Mac’s shoulder, hiding his traitorous facial expressions until he could pull himself together. Mac allowed him to do it, rocking his weight back and forth slightly. Back and forth, back and forth. It was steady. Soothing.

After a moment, Mac’s arms dropped from his shoulders to his waist, pulling him in for a hug. Dennis let his own arms hang at his side, not trusting himself to touch Mac at that moment. He needed to collect himself, needed more time. Being alone this late in the bar meant there was nothing to distract Mac, to pull him away temporarily so Dennis could step aside and reprocess. 

Clearly taking the lack of response to his hug as a sign that Dennis was still upset with him, Mac began to ramble again, the vibrations in his chest soothing against his cheek.

“I like when the whole gang is here, day drinking,” he said. “I like when you tip your beer bottle as you make a point, and how you smile when you’ve said something clever, even if I don’t understand. It’s really hot. And I like when you drive us home, and you play all that shitty glam rock crap you like, but sometimes you sing along and you look so happy, or if you remember something you’re really excited about you’ll drive with one hand and squeeze my knee with the other, and it feels like my heart is gonna burst right out of my chest, dude. When you touch me unexpectedly like that, I don’t know. It just does something to me I can’t express good with words. And I really love movie nights, when you let me keep my hand on your thigh, and you keep leaning into me more and more during the movie because you say you get cold—”

“The living room is drafty,” he mumbled around tee-shirt fabric, “you can’t deny that.”

“Okay, but it’s not _that_ cold. And you end up pressed against me, and sometimes you fall asleep, man. And you look so relaxed and pretty and calm and I just want to always remember those types of experiences. They’re like, perfect moments, all of them. Because you’re perfect.”

Before he could continue, Dennis pulled back, schooling his face into a neutral look. He watched Mac’s own dark eyes flicker nervously over his face, looking for an indication of his mood in his brows, his lips, his eyes. Yet he knew that when he focused, he could keep himself closed off, unreadable. Even Mac had yet to pierce this veil, and he intended to keep it that way.

“Are you mad at me?” Mac finally asked.

“No. That was uh,” he reached into his jeans pocket, couldn’t find his pen, realized it was over at the bar with his notepad. He had nothing to fiddle with to keep his hands busy. Pity, because he really needed a distraction. “That was nice, what you just told me.”

“So, are we good?”

“Good, yes, of course we’re good! We were never not good, Mac, Jesus Christ.”

He knew Mac didn’t quite believe him, but he stepped back, finally relinquishing his hold on Dennis. “Fine. So…how much more work do you have to do?” He returned to unpacking the case of Absolut, carrying several bottles at a time behind the bar and lining them up under the counter.

“I’m about done here,” Dennis responded, retrieving his notepad and pencil, though his eyes continued to stray towards Mac, towards his cloudy expression. “So unless you want to keep unpacking for the rest of the night, what do you say we go home?”

“Okay. I’ll grab our jackets from the back room.”

“Perfect,” he nodded, pretending to check over the notes he’d taken. “Oh, and Mac?”

The man paused, halfway across the room. “What’s up?”

“Start thinking about which _Die Hard_ movie you want to watch tonight. It’s a little chilly out, so I’m thinking we bust out that fleece blanket while we’re at it.”

It took a few seconds for his words to truly register with Mac, but when they did, it was worth it. His eyes crinkled in the corners and he flashed his infuriatingly perfect white teeth in a huge smile. “Really?”

“Yeah, really. I think a Mac and Dennis Movie Night is long overdue.”

Mac practically ran into the back room, yelling over his shoulder. “Can we watch _Predator?_ ”

“I’ll think about it,” Dennis quipped, making sure all of the lights were off in the bar before heading towards the back exit. He checked off in his mind what movies were currently lying around the apartment, if they had any microwave popcorn left, whether or not they’d ever bothered returning that big bowl from Dee.

He startled when he felt Mac suddenly right behind him, holding his coat up for him so he could slip his arms into it.

“Thanks.”

“Thank you,” came the response as Mac leaned over his shoulder, kissing his cheek. All stubble and smile.

For just a second, Dennis leaned back, feeling sturdy arms holding him from behind, feeling Mac’s chin on his shoulder, enjoying the sensation of being so safe.

Was this it, something as simple as a short ride home and a re-run of a movie they’d seen thirty times and maybe some hand-holding really enough for Mac? And tied up within all that, was that really it, was he really what made him happy? It was hard to believe that it was true, that Dennis was capable of making anyone feel in any way complete or content, but god he hoped it was.

Mac’s lips were at his ear suddenly. “Got your keys?”

Dennis stepped forward, reaching into his jacket pocket. “Yeah, I do. Let’s go home.”


End file.
